Background

Notes and format last updated Apr 16, 2020

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total cases can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total deaths can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
State Cases Per Million
New York 12,939
New Jersey 10,401
Massachusetts 5,977
Connecticut 5,710
Louisiana 5,346
Rhode Island 5,191
District of Columbia 4,389
Michigan 3,297
Delaware 3,009
Pennsylvania 2,763
Illinois 2,608
Maryland 2,347
South Dakota 1,983
Colorado 1,814
Georgia 1,807
Indiana 1,796
Washington 1,621
Mississippi 1,584
Vermont 1,310
Florida 1,297
Nevada 1,278
Ohio 1,174
Iowa 1,154
Virginia 1,128
New Hampshire 1,096
Alabama 1,086
Tennessee 1,074
Utah 1,029
New Mexico 988
Missouri 967
Idaho 928
California 907
South Carolina 894
Nebraska 892
North Dakota 845
Wisconsin 793
Arkansas 749
Kansas 725
Texas 722
Arizona 721
Kentucky 714
Oklahoma 709
North Carolina 662
Maine 660
Wyoming 556
West Virginia 518
Oregon 474
Minnesota 455
Alaska 446
Hawaii 409
Montana 408
Puerto Rico 286
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Cases Per Million
New Jersey 411
Rhode Island 317
Connecticut 262
New York 256
Massachusetts 233
District of Columbia 204
Delaware 134
Iowa 119
Maryland 103
Illinois 102
Ohio 99
Pennsylvania 94
Louisiana 91
Mississippi 83
South Dakota 80
Michigan 74
Indiana 72
Georgia 68
Nebraska 65
Virginia 61
Colorado 58
Arkansas 53
North Dakota 50
New Mexico 43
California 42
Alabama 41
Utah 37
Florida 36
Kentucky 36
New Hampshire 36
Tennessee 34
Kansas 33
Nevada 33
North Carolina 25
Arizona 24
Wisconsin 24
Missouri 23
South Carolina 23
Texas 23
Washington 23
Minnesota 20
Oklahoma 19
West Virginia 19
Idaho 15
Oregon 12
Maine 10
Vermont 8
Wyoming 7
Alaska 6
Montana 3
Hawaii 2
Puerto Rico -21
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
State Deaths Per Million
New York 762
New Jersey 535
Connecticut 399
Louisiana 302
Massachusetts 284
Michigan 270
Rhode Island 161
District of Columbia 158
Pennsylvania 126
Illinois 116
Maryland 96
Indiana 93
Washington 89
Colorado 84
Delaware 84
Georgia 76
Vermont 64
Mississippi 61
Nevada 52
Ohio 47
Oklahoma 41
Wisconsin 41
Florida 40
Kentucky 38
Virginia 38
Alabama 37
Kansas 36
Missouri 36
California 33
New Hampshire 30
New Mexico 30
Arizona 29
Idaho 28
Minnesota 28
Iowa 26
Maine 26
South Carolina 26
Tennessee 24
North Carolina 20
Nebraska 19
Texas 19
Oregon 18
North Dakota 17
Arkansas 14
West Virginia 14
Puerto Rico 13
Montana 11
Wyoming 10
Alaska 9
South Dakota 9
Utah 9
Hawaii 8
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Deaths Per Million
Connecticut 31
New Jersey 25
New York 25
Massachusetts 19
Michigan 13
Pennsylvania 12
Rhode Island 10
District of Columbia 9
Louisiana 9
Maryland 6
Delaware 5
Illinois 5
Colorado 4
Georgia 4
Indiana 4
Mississippi 3
Ohio 3
Alabama 2
Kansas 2
Kentucky 2
Minnesota 2
Oklahoma 2
Virginia 2
Washington 2
Wyoming 2
Arizona 1
California 1
Florida 1
Idaho 1
Missouri 1
Nebraska 1
New Mexico 1
North Carolina 1
North Dakota 1
South Carolina 1
Vermont 1
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 1
Alaska 0
Arkansas 0
Hawaii 0
Iowa 0
Maine 0
Montana 0
Nevada 0
New Hampshire 0
Oregon 0
South Dakota 0
Tennessee 0
Texas 0
Utah 0
Puerto Rico -1
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 85,550 1 99
Lincoln Arkansas 34,014 2 99
Marion Ohio 32,753 3 99
Rockland New York 29,369 4 99
Pickaway Ohio 27,969 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 2,789 186 94
Richland South Carolina 1,657 399 87
Pierce Washington 1,354 500 84
York South Carolina 577 1184 62
Orange California 532 1262 59

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 6,325 1 99
Randolph Georgia 2,361 2 99
Terrell Georgia 2,110 3 99
Nassau New York 1,265 4 99
Dougherty Georgia 1,171 5 99
Pierce Washington 40 685 78
Richland South Carolina 34 770 75
Davidson Tennessee 32 800 74
York South Carolina 11 1162 63
Orange California 10 1165 62

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons